"Is blind faith immoral? On Faith vs. Reason" by
Robert Kaiser

Judaism (among other faiths) affirms theism - the belief in God. In
practice, while religious people claim to affirm this belief as true, most
have never seriously considered the question "What is God?" The
problem is that merely stating that God is real says nothing about what
God is; claiming to believe in something without precisely defining what
that something is, is close to believing nothing at all. When pressed to
describe specifically what they believe in, the average person only can
repeat claims about God's actions, or about God's love for humanity. Even
assuming that said actions actually happened, or that said relationship
actually exists, this says little about the nature of God; it really only
tells us about a particular historical incident, or about how people
describe their relationship to the divine.

Since the dawn of rabbinic Judaism, the Jewish people have produced many
of the world's greatest philosophers. Showing great intellectual courage,
they met the question of "What is God?" straight on, and have
produced a voluminous and inspiring literature that proposes answers to
this question. Not surprisingly, all of their efforts have been
continually challenged by lesser minds, as many people are afraid that
philosophical inquiry posed a threat to simple faith. When early medieval
Jewish philosophers accepted Platonic philosophy as a way to help
understand God, some responded with claims of heresy. When later medieval
thinkers such as Saadya Gaon and then Maimonides accepted Aristotelian
philosophy as a way to help understand God, some responded with claims of
heresy. When modern day thinkers such as Joseph Soloveitchik used a
Kantian take on Platonic philosophy as a way to help understand God, some
responded with claims of heresy. When modern day thinkers such as Max
Kaddushin and William Kaufman used Albert North Whitehead's concept of
process philosophy as a way to help understand God, some responded with
claims of heresy.

Yet in all these ages, the spirit of rational inquiry prevailed. "Most
medieval Jewish philosophers considered intellectual inquiry essential to
a religious life, and were convinced that there could be no real
opposition between reason and faith. Thus, Saadiah Gaon held that, 'The
Bible is not the sole basis of our religion, for in addition to it we have
two other bases. One of these is anterior to it; namely, the fountain of
reason...' (Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 3:10). Bahya ibn Paquda believed
that it is a religious duty to investigate by rational methods such
questions as God's unity, because, of the three avenues which God has
given us to know Him and His law, 'the first is a sound intellect' (Hovot
ha-Levavot, introduction; cf. 1:3).... This attitude toward the
relationship between reason and faith dominated medieval Jewish
philosophy. It reached its highest, most elaborate, and most familiar
expression in the thought of Maimonides, and was reaffirmed by later
philosophers, such as Levi b. Gershom and Joseph Albo. ["God", "in
Medieval Jewish philosophy", Encyclopaedia Judaica, hence "EJ"]

However, in all of these cases Judaism teaches that God - however defined
- certainly exists, and we must believe this to be so. But should we
believe in God just because we are told to?

Most forms of Judaism (as well as the various forms of Christianity and
Islam) say "Yes", but many modern people no longer will blindly
accept such claims. In fact, as shown above, even most "believers"
in God don't actually believe in God, as they have no particular
definition of God in mind. They merely affirm that a statement (e.g. "God
is real") is true without having any idea what the content of that
statement is, if any.

Many people, like this author, require a firmer basis for their beliefs
than a blind appeal to authority. In fact, one can go further, and point
out that it may well be immoral to have beliefs without a logical basis.
Theodore Schick, Jr. and Lewis Vaughn discuss why this is so:

'Everybody's entitled to their own opinion' goes the platitude, meaning
that everybody has the right to believe whatever they want. But is that
really true? Are there no limits on what is permissible to believe? Or, as
in the case of actions, are some beliefs immoral? Surprisingly, perhaps,
many have argued that just as we have a moral duty not to perform certain
sorts of actions, so we have a moral duty not to have certain sorts of
beliefs. No one has expressed this point of view more forcefully than the
distinguished mathematician W. K. Clifford: 'It is wrong always,
everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.'
"

Others of similar stature have echoed this sentiment. Biologist Thomas
Henry Huxley, for example, declared, 'It is wrong for a man to say that he
is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce
evidence which logically justifies that certainty.' And Brand Blanshard
has proclaimed that where great human goods and ills are involved, the
distortion of belief from any sort of avoidable cause is immoral, and the
more immoral the greater the stakes.

These men think it wrong for belief to outstrip the evidence because our
actions are guided by our beliefs, and if our beliefs are mistaken, our
actions may be misguided, As Blanshard indicated, the more important the
decision, the greater our duty to align our beliefs with the evidence, and
the greater the crime if we don't. Where not much hangs on the belief, it
might be thought that what one believes has little importance. But
Clifford claims that even in trivial matters we have a duty to proportion
our belief to the evidence:

'Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our
powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing
evidence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support
of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to.... But
a greater and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained
and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered
and made permanent.'

According to Clifford, responsible believing is a skill that can be
maintained only through constant practice. And since responsible believing
is a prerequisite for responsible acting, we have a duty to foster this
skill.

While this line of reasoning goes against what most religious people
believe, I am firmly persuaded by the logic. Thus, we should not believe
in God without reason. It seems, then, that we would be obligated to
search for reasonable arguments to believe in God. Finding such reason we
would be obliged to believe in God; lacking such reason we would be
obliged to dismiss God's existence as a unproven hypothesis.

Many Jewish medieval theologians accepted this above argument to some
extent; the difference is that they assumed that proof for God's existence
would be found; they never considered the possibility that such proof
wouldn't exist. Since then, theologians have endeavored to find ways to
prove that God exists; the effort has continued unabated to this day. Over
the years, all of the earlier proofs were dropped as they were seen to be
unsatisfactory; other arguments for the existence of God were revised in
light of criticism by those who saw weaknesses in said proofs. The most
popular and convincing arguments for God's existence that, in various
forms, still exist today, are listed below:

The ontological argument: God's existence follows necessarily from a
definition of what He is.

The teleological argument (aka argument from design). It is highly
improbable that the balanced order of the universe arose accidentally.

The cosmological argument: The world must have been put together at
some point in time; it could not have made itself, therefore, it must
have been created, and the creator must be God.

The cosmological argument from motion. Maimonides held that "since
things in the world are in motion and no finite thing can move itself,
every motion must be caused by another; but since this leads to an
infinite regress, which is unintelligible, there must be an unmoved
mover at the beginning of the series. This unmoved mover is God." [EJ]

The contingent existence argument: "Another of Maimonides'
arguments begins from the fact that the existence of all things in our
experience is contingent, i.e., their existence begins and ends in time,
so that each thing can be conceived as not existing. Contingent
existence is unintelligible, unless there is at least one necessary
existence, one being whose existence is eternal and independent of all
cause, standing behind it. Maimonides laid great stress on the
conception of God as necessary existence." [EJ]

The Kuzari argument: God revealed His existence to man in a public
historical event. "Saadiah and Judah Halevi offered a
non-philosophical argument. Since the revelation at Sinai took place in
the presence of 600,000 adults [according to the Torah] there is public
evidence that places the fact of God's existence beyond all reasonable
doubt." [EJ] This argument is one of the most popular arguments
accepted in the Orthodox Jewish community, but most people have long
rejected this as a case of circular reasoning: This logic is only
convincing if one assumes that that this event took place as described
in the Torah, but that is precisely what people need to prove to make
the claim tenable.

As Prof. Marvin Fox points out "Atheism was known in the Middle
Ages, and was countered by the various proofs for the existence of God
that were common to all medieval philosophical theology. Yet, since the
dominant medieval culture was overwhelmingly religious, atheism
constituted only a minor threat. In modern times atheism became a
significant and widely held doctrine, based on and reinforced by
naturalistic scientific ideas and scientifically oriented philosophy. The
classical proofs for God's existence have been largely discredited and no
longer provide a satisfactory ground for theism." [EJ]

However, all is not lost. "Modern theists usually offer arguments for
the existence of God, but do not claim that they have proofs. These
arguments, though not decisive, provide a justification for the theistic
option, since it is claimed that these are matters about which no
demonstrative certainty is possible. In the 20th century theistic belief
usually rests on a combination of admittedly incomplete intellectual
evidence and personal faith and commitment." ["Conceptions of God", EJ]

Thus, while there is no one proof that proves that an omnipotent God
exists, there are a set of proofs that, taken together, may be used to
construct an argument that it is at least reasonable to believe that God
exists. Perhaps the best constructed argument for God's existence, that
takes into account the weakness of the individual classical "proofs", is "The
Existence of God (Revised edition)" Richard Swinburne [Clarendon
Press.]

References:

Robert D. Kaiser is webmaster Judaism FAQs -- "a place for both
Jews and gentiles to learn more about Jewish theology and philosophy. It
also is the home of the Conservative & Masorti Judaism FAQ." See:
http://communities.msn.com/judaismfaqs